WORD

David Mitchell told the Guardian he had read the “deeply impressive” script nine months ago. “They aren’t attempting merely to film the book, which is why many adaptations come to grief – the novel’s already there, so why spend all that effort on an audiobook with visuals?” he said via email.

“Rather, the three directors have assembled Cloud Atlas and reassembled it in a form which – fingers crossed – will be a glorious, epic thing. The reincarnation motif in the book is just a hinted-at linking device, but the script gives it centre stage to link the six worlds with characters, causes and effects. A novel can’t do multi-role acting: a film can. The directors are playing to the strengths of their medium, just like I try to.”